Geoffrey West is Distinguished Professor and former President of the Santa Fe Institute (2005 - 2009) and an Associate Fellow of the Säid  Business School, Oxford University. Previously, he was leader of high energy physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he remains a Senior Fellow. He received his BA from Cambridge University in 1961 and PhD in physics from Stanford University in 1966. After spells at Cornell and Harvard Universities, he returned to Stanford in 1970 to join the faculty. His research in biology includes metabolic rate, growth, aging & mortality, sleep, cancer, and ecosystem dynamics. Recent work focuses on developing an underlying quantitative theory for the structure and dynamics of cities, companies and long-term global sustainability, including rates of growth and innovation and the accelerating pace of life. Among recent awards are the Mercer Prize from the Ecological Society of America, the Weldon Prize for Mathematical Biology and the Glenn Award for Aging research. His work was selected as a breakthrough idea by Harvard Business Review (2007) and he was selected for Time's 2006 list of "100 Most Influential People in the World".

Published: Monday, February 06, 2012

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